Wasting your time with things I find interesting, amusing, or enraging. Reinke does not work for, consult to, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has no relevant affiliations

NORWAY IS HOME to more than 1,100 road tunnels. They cut through the mountains and stretch under its deep sea, allowing vehicles a more direct route through the country’s challenging terrain. The Scandinavian country has burrowed thoroughfares for nearly every mode of transportation—except one.

“We build a lot of tunnels, just not for ships” says Terje Andreassen, head of Kystverket, the Norwegian coastal administration. It’s strange when you think about it. Norway has more than 18,000 miles of coastline, punctuated by rugged cliffs that jut into the sea like outstretched fingers. The country’s fjords fill the long, slender gaps between the cliffs. These narrow inlets are famed for their beauty, but are a pain for shipping vessels. Traversing the country’s coast requires venturing in and out of fjords, which is inefficient; and rough waters on the open ocean occasionally strand boats in an inlet’s relatively placid waters. That’s why, for the last two years, Kystverket and the architecture firm Snohetta have plugged away at a proposal to build the world’s first ship tunnel. The recently approved plan calls for a mile-long passageway through the Stadlandet Peninsula in northwestern Norway, and would afford boats a safe and quick alternative to the tumultuous waters separating two major fjords.

*** end quote ***

Seems so obvious.

And a great engineering feat.

Makes life better, safer, and more predictable for their society.

My only question is: “As a gooferment project, as opposed to one funded and done by an entrepreneur, how much of a boondoggle will this become?”

19 Wikipedia Pages That’ll Send You Into A Week-Long Wikihole See you next week.Posted on September 12, 2016, at 12:24 p.m. Ellie Bate Buzz Feed Staff

*** begin quote ***

We recently asked members of the BuzzFeed Community to tell us which Wikipedia articles they love to waste time reading. Here are their recommendations…

1. Unit 731Suggested by Lurker8.

Unit 731 was a unit of the Japanese Imperial Army that carried out brutal (and, in many cases, lethal) experimentation on human beings during World War II under the guise of chemical and biological research. For the majority of the time it was active, the unit acted under the command of General Shiro Ishii, and was responsible for the deaths of up to 250,000 people. The worst part? Instead of being put on trial for human experimentation, the people involved with the unit were granted immunity by the US government in exchange for the data they had gathered.

*** end quote ***

While I found the concept of a “Wikihole” fascinating, the first suggestion was shocking!

Once again the US Gooferment does the unthinkable and the unforgivable.